At the beginning of every year, after surviving the holidays, I’ve always had to immediately plan a birthday party for my January and February birthday boys, one now 12, the youngest 10. We went from bounce houses to local playground parties to skateboarding with the crew. Since their birthdays are so close to each other and they have many of the same friends, we’ve always held the party for both of them together.
This year, however, my 12-year-old told me he did NOT want to do that next year, and that was the moment I realized he had outgrown our birthday party arrangement. Little brother liked the idea of splitting it up, too. It’s the end of an era, I thought, but the beginning of a new one as well. I’m now living with tween boys.
The start of middle school this past fall was really when I started to notice the small changes in my oldest. He was enjoying his new independence, getting to stay up a little late on the weekends now, riding his bike alone without us hovering, even offering to help around the house at times to earn a small allowance. He was really coming into his own.
He got his first phone and now has his own social life with a few select friends, making plans to meet up to go fishing. Now he wants to ride his bike to school, which makes me so nervous.
This raising-a-tween thing is hard. We want independent, self-sufficient kids, right? Of course, we do.
How do you find the balance of letting them go on their own and learn their own life lessons without them getting hurt? How do you determine if you are just being a helicopter parent or if it’s time to let them experience life in their own way?
For me, it’s looking to my parent friends with older kids and positive influences involved in their lives like coaches and close family friends. Looking to parents who have teens driving or kids in college are great to ask about their experiences and use as a sounding board. Is it too soon for something? How did you handle it? What did you do afterward, type of things. Coaches are good resources to reiterate important messages that your tween might not otherwise listen to you about too.
But it’s also fun having two tween boys, even though they drive me crazy sometimes. Man, they have a lot of energy, but they are fun.
I have two independent thinkers who are brave and want to try new things. They do fun stuff like wrestle, jiu-jitsu, ride dirt bikes, and skate. They care about performing well in school and talk to us openly about what is on their minds because we allow them to be themselves. They are learning who they are and what they like and don’t like, and they still want mom and dad around. They have such different personalities, but they are still at the age that they are close with each other. We are a close family, and for that, I am grateful.
I am proud of my guys. Always rooting for the underdog, sticking up for each other, selective with their friendships, and learning who they want to surround themselves with. They learn to fail one hundred times without giving up, then finally succeed and understand what that means to them. Which, by the way, is hard for some adults to figure out! All these things they begin to experience as tweens that mom can’t necessarily help with. I am learning that sometimes I’m just here to listen and offer advice, not fix it. Sometimes they want to hear it, most times they don’t.
I suppose the point of this article is to remind myself and maybe you, too, if you need it, that they will all be okay. Your tweens will figure it out, they will go through difficult situations and learn from them and move on. They will get hurt, and it will scare you, but they will be brave and get back up. Offer support to them when needed and look for cues that something might not be quite right. Spend time with them. Lots of time. Listen to their stories and what is important to them. Even if it’s about a video game character that they like. Find out why they like it. It’s a window into their minds and how they process thoughts and emotions.
So, after reading this, if you feel so inclined, go tell your kids you are proud of them, too, for being themselves and always trying their best. Being a tween is hard, raising kids is hard, and we are literally learning as we go and making mistakes along the way.
Before we know it, we’ll be adjusting to a new era — just when we think we have it all figured out.
As for now, I’m going to enjoy living in my “tween era” and trying to keep up with these crazy boys of mine. Cheers!
